Worried about the Big 10’s recent habit of face-planting in high-profile out-of-conference games? Jim Delany isn’t:

“In any particular time frame, could be three years, could be five years, could be two years, you could get your ass kicked, OK?” Delany continued. “It can happen. We’re not playing Little Sisters of the Poor. We’re playing the best football teams in their region.

“So were we 1-6 (in bowl games) last year? Yeah. Were we 0-6 in the BCS in the last (three years)? We were. Those are the facts. But take me from 2000 or 1997 to 2005; I remember when Michigan played Ohio State [in 2006]. We were the toast of the town, one versus two, game of the century.”

Jim Delany’s not too worried about it, really. He wouldn’t worry about it. Don’t worry about it. He’s not worried at all.

Sounds like a reasonably nonchalant response to the issue, even if, as Doc Saturday humbly points out, it’s a problem that isn’t likely to resolve itself this season no matter what Delany says. For all the criticism we’ve heaped on the Big 10 commissioner over the past couple years, he sounds like a guy who takes a level-headed, matter-of-fact approach to problems instead of panicking, which is the kind of trait you’d want in not only a conference commish but also . . . an advice columnist:

Dear Big 10 Commish,
My husband and I have three children: a son who is in college and two daughters, a 16-year-old and a 10-year-old. My older daughter was an A student all through elementary and middle school, but her grades have deteriorated markedly since she started high school. She has a boyfriend now and has been spending a lot more time with him and his clique of friends, and a lot less time studying or helping out around the house; she hasn’t been particularly combative toward me or my husband, but that’s mainly because we hardly ever see her at all. A couple weeks ago I found what looked like the remnants of a marijuana cigarette on our back patio; I asked her if she knew anything about it and she said she didn’t, and that she had never tried marijuana or any other drugs. Can I trust her? Is it time for me to put my foot down and make her stop spending as much time with her boyfriend, or will that only drive her further away?
Concerned Mother in Battle Creek

(more…)

Percy Harvin is injured. Big deal, we say: Percy Harvin is always injured. Just before the national title game in 2006, Percy Harvin sneezed and severed his femoral artery. Bleeding profusely and on the brink of death, he put on his pants, strapped on the helmet, and after three cups of Gatorade ripped off 82 yards of total offense and a TD against the Ohio State Buckeyes. He then died immediately postgame, but recovered in time for spring practices.

Like a finely tuned sports car, Percy runs at top speed and, more frequently than not, is on blocks during the week receiving physical therapy, being massaged by virgins, and laughing gustily at the jesters and midgets who amuse the court at Florida. For the uninitiated, here’s an easy summary of Percy’s injuries over the years.

We left out an ingrown toenail that had him in the ICU until three hours before the South Carolina game. He was slowed to a mere 8 carry, 167 yard performance as a result. Our apologies. (HT: Holly.)

I mean, of course he is. If this coaching staff had anyone left in their corner at all after treating a reeling, gutted fanbase to a full quarter of Jonathan Crompton, I’d love to hear from them.

So, here we go. It’s time; there’s absolutely no arguing that, but for a city and a team threatened by the remotest hint of change the balance of the season looms dark and our natural pessimism has finally found purchase.� Even with both feet in the FIRE HIS ASS YESTERDAY camp, I was never going to be entirely comfortable when this day came.� He’s the coach of my childhood, the devil I know.� Six weeks ago, I wrote,� “It�s our time at the edge, and the stay will be neither brief nor pleasant.”� I had no idea.

But if there’s anything to celebrate here with complete joyful abandon (for me, campers, for me), it’s that Chris Low scooped the living hell out of the Knoxville News-Sentinel, a terrible paper with a simpering buffoon of a sports editor in John Adams.� Save your preening, sir—you’ve had a public, exhausting vendetta against the guy for years and today you got beat.� ABIGAIL Adams would’ve had that story first, and that bitch has been dead almost 200 years.

Please, Alabama fan: don’t shoot.

Please, people of Alabama: have mercy upon the endangered elephant. As we speak, you or one of your brethren is crouched in the bed of a safari truck, aiming a high-caliber weapon at the oblong skull of a bull elephant somewhere in the wilds of Africa.

Though you may be tempted to shoot it, sell its hide, and then immediately place its knee ligaments in a transplant cooler bound via air freight for Tuscaloosa, do not: Terrence Cody’s timing belt-sized MCL, sprained though it may be, requires no replacing, per ESPN reports:

Alabama coach Nick Saban is supposed to update Cody’s situation later today. He’s expected to miss the next week or two, but should be back in time for the LSU game on Nov. 8.

This is good news for the elephant, since you will not be taking the ligaments from its knee to put in Terrence Cody’s knee, a joint of similar size and load-bearing strength. This is also good news for Alabama, who have taken advantage of Cody’s mutant size to play a 4.5-3 defense and take the Tide to the fourth spot in rushing defense nationally. The Cody Effect was just as prominent in his absence Saturday: Hinton points out that Ole Miss scored on the drive Cody left the game and took five of the next six drives into Bama territory.

If you have already pulled the trigger and shot the elephant, however: give your guides ten percent, sell the meat as “jumbo buffalo” in the markets of Dar Es Salaam, and see our close personal friend Amir Massoud at the docks in Zanzibar for assistance with the rest of your “luggage.” He’s good people.

Rudy Carpenter lines up against Georgia this weekend, a matchup most people in Atlanta seem to think may result in Carpenter ending up as a thick reddish/yellow paste on the turf of Sun Devil Stadium. Consider, if you will, the concept we repeated in Hayes vs. Hall this week: that nothing can be done to Rudy Carpenter that has not happened to him already. He’s been benched, taunted by name by an entire defense, was sacked 57 times in the 2007 eason, has taken deathly shots from the Pac-10’s nastiest defenders, and was trampled by a herd of runaway moose as a child. All of this, and he still has 33 consecutive starts under his (hernia) belt.

If his history of playing through hasn’t impressed you yet…well, perhaps a helpful chart will.

(Illustration: Holly.)

��Tis the maddest trick a man can ever play in his whole life, to let his breath sneak out of his body without any more ado, and without so much as a rap o�er the pate, or a kick of the guts; to go out like the snuff of a farthing candle, and die merely of the mulligrubs, or the sullens.�